I should certainly thank you for your kind words about the Awdal Roads
Company in your recent essay on secession (TLE #131). It should go
without saying that I think the project is legitimate, too. While a
good many Americans have lived in Somalia, and some still do, it is
not the case that we are asking anyone of the American libertarian
persuasion to live there. Rather, we are discussing a country of great
heritage, centuries old, called Awdal.

Nor would we recklessly suggest that any Americans seeking freedom
pack up their kit bags and fly to Awdal today. Instead, we are working
on a free zone connected to a free port. It is our intention to have a
system of laws suited to the interests of liberty loving people, with
private administration of all services. The negotiations are in
process, and take time.

Somalia as it has previously been conceived doesn't exist. It ceased
to exist, formally, in 1991, when its dictator was ousted. To speak of
Somali people is sensible, to speak of Somali territories is
practical, and to speak of Somalia, as if the Democratic Republic of
Somalia still exists, is rather sad. It happens, quite often, but it
reminds me of Southerners still proudly speaking of the Confederacy.

In your article, which is a very good one, you suggest that the USA
would not send in troops to squash a rebellion or secession movement.
If I were to refer to the events of 28 February 1993 in Mt. Carmel,
Texas, all kinds of objections would arise as to why the heavily armed
Branch Davidians were not a separatist movement. Of course, they are
dead, now, so such discussions are largely academic. The official
policy of the USA remains to this day one of defending the actions
taken in February and April of 1993.

Similar actions took place in April and May of 1997 in Fort Davis,
Texas, against the oddball R. L. McLaren and his faction of the
Republic of Texas, and again in recent memory to the Freemen of
Montana, and is happening now to a guy in East Texas, Joe Gray as I
recall his name. The entire purpose of agencies like the FBI and the
BATF is to oppose armed, organized resistance to the USA government.
Turning a blind eye to these events is going to get people killed.
Again.

Nor is it the case that the analogy to Milosevic holds. As you say,
the system of internationalist socialist governance is set up to do
the bidding of people in places of power, like Washington, DC. People
from scruffy little countries like Serbia get hauled before
international tribunals, where the media can tut their collective
tongues. Janet Reno and Bill Clinton will never face such a tribunal,
not in the Hague. Possibly in what remains of a post-war DC, though
that is stretching a point.

In the event you get some enthusiastic support for your effort, I
would strongly urge you to read the book
How to Start Your Own Country by Erwin Strauss, available from
Loompanics and other fine booksellers. Strauss treats ideas like "vo nu"
or disappearing from the system, as well as the permanent traveller
phenomenon with considerable attention to detail. He also ruthlessly
separates the wheat from the chaff in new country efforts.

I would also suggest you look at the OECD attacks on tax havens as a
lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. There are people seriously
working to demonstrate the advantages of digital encryption, tax
havens, global telecomm, and I know a great many of them. Economic
sanctions against places like Guernsey, Anguilla, and Singapore really
don't have much significance to them. At the same time, there are
billions of dollars locked away in complete safety, and more going
underground all the time. The rate is accelerating tremendously.

Finally, you had me going, right up to the very end. You had me
excited, ready to join, ready to be a part of yet another movement
toward secession. Right up until you said we would vote on where to
move to.

Voting is a ritual combat system to decide things we don't have a good
way to evaluate and understand. It is used to count noses, as if that
were important. In war, it might be, but there are numerous examples
of wars won by smaller forces. The country of Monaco still exists
because Grimaldi walked in, alone, to a fortress, and then let in a
small team.

Moreover, in choosing a site for democratically elected takeover,
great attention should be focused on winning. Not winning elections,
which are ritual combat, rigged vote counts, and unlikely to play a
major role in your success. (Name the election between 1773 and 1781
that counted the noses among 3 million North American colonists to
settle the matter of independence.) But winning freedom, which is
where it matters.

Choose a territory by using reason. Voting is not the accumulation of
reason. If people cannot give good arguments about why things should
go their way, they are probably a poor judge of how the decision
should be made. Voters are as likely to vote for a warm climate as a
cold one, as likely to vote for their neighborhood as not, and may
have completely irrational reasons; libertarians are not that
different from other voters.

Wyoming and Idaho have good prospects, owing to their size,
mountainous terrain, low population, presence of lots of freedom
enthusiasts (a friend of mine, Mark Laughlin, has a photo on one of
his web sites of a liquor store in Pineland, Wyoming, the marquee of
which reads "Who Is John Galt?"), lots of guns in the woods, distance
from dead-center Washington, and other merits. There is even a chain
of convenience stores in Wyoming which features in its advertising a
cartoon character, Maverick, who is "for Western independence."

Military history is an important branch of political science. Picking
the time and place of battles, and the rules of engagement, is the key
to victory. Numerical superiority and brute force can win battles, but
timing, location, and other tactical advantages often win out. It was
not numerical superiority that won the Vietnam war for Vietnam, nor
the war for Afghanistan for the Taliban. Terrain played a major role.
One could go on and on. From Alexander's battles with the Persians to
Henry at Agincourt, terrain and tactics have proven the equal to
numbers. Not one victory has ever happened on a site which was chosen
by polling the combatants.

Finally, I think you should be aware that there is a group which wants
to take over, not a state, but a county, in Texas. You may have heard
of the West Texas county of Loving, headquartered in Mentone,
population 80, give or take 20. I admit to not having 2001 census data
in front of me, and to not being willing to believe it if I did.

County governments have a good deal of power. They control many taxes,
and collect certain others. Their police forces are entitled to
surplus weaponry from the USA military, and Loving County Sheriff's
department could make a good case for helicopters, fixed wing
aircraft, battle tanks, and SWAT armament for fighting the drug war,
it being reasonably close to some drug traffic flows.

And, of course, a county government could be a proof of concept for
you, much more readily attained than a state government. I don't
happen to think Loving County has many terrain features going for it,
but it is one of the lowest population counties West of the
Mississippi, so as a proof of concept, it has merit. So, if you want
to contact those folx, or the digital encryption guyz, or a large
number of people enthusiastic about doing something useful in their
own lifetimes, please let me know.

If your project takes up the question of whether voting is a sensible
way to settle anything, I would be very interested.

Jason, let's do it. Let's create a free place on Earth. Then, let's do
it again. With the Limon Real project, the efforts in Belize, the
project in Romania, and a half dozen others, there are credible
efforts to put new countries together. The USA presents particularly
fierce and fearsome challenges to any such effort within its borders,
but dozens of Indian nations eke out an existence, many with casino
style and verve.

As I told an audience in France recently, the more places on Earth
that become free, the better. And the sooner I'll start working on
free places in space.

Thanks for your detailed comments on my proposal. I just wanted to
make one brief response to your objection to voting as decision
mechanism. Certainly voting as it operates in state systems does not
work, because of the apathy & ignorance of most citizens. However,
voting works in a myriad of other settings, including everything from
corporate governance to high school clubs. We hope to inform our
members in detail about the advantages & disadvantages of every state
& thus reach a decision, in the end, based on reason. The only
alternative is for me or somebody else to claim unique access to
reason and to dictate from the beginning where everyone should go.

<< One real-world consideration you neglected to consider in your
essay, though, troubles me. For a secession to have even a ghost of a
chance, free trade is (obviously) essential. The Free State Project
will have a far better chance of success if carried out in a state
that is not landlocked. If Iowa or Wyoming secede, the Federal
Government can simply tariff it to death. Even a state on the Great
Lakes or St. Lawrence Seaway could be choked off by Canada and the US.
An ocean front state would be best, preferably one with a foreign
border as well (Texas, by only these criteria, is perfect). There are
other considerations, naturally, but this struck me as essential. >>

<< Some day, a critical mass will be reached. Enough people will wake
up and decide to be free that we can just laugh at the toady. That day
isn't today. Therefore, if you're a smart freeman, you take out your
cash, pay up, drive on, and speed up as soon as the toady is out of
sight. You don't have to like it, but being short of cash is better
than being short of your life. >>

No, you can demand a trial by jury and get your friends to hand out
FIJA pamphlets to everyone - including the jury pool - before they
enter the courtroom.

The so-called "tax rebate" checks coming to American taxpayers are
apparently NOT a rebate, but simply an advance on 2001 tax year
refunds. Check out this article for a good explanation of how the
White House and Congress are hustling us:
http://www.detnews.com/2001/politics/0107/26/-254330.htm

Kent Van Cleave [kvc@tima.com]

P.S. -- Please cross-post widely. This is phantom-goodies-for-votes
politics at its worst.

> I've noticed of late that people are again stating that a
> Libertarian believes, among other things, that one must never
> initiate force against another person.
>
> Meanwhile, every day, various government agents are using guns and
> other forceful means -- including "legal" and judicial -- to
> enforce unconstitutional laws against people who've not harmed
> anyone. The term "initiate" is met by such actions.
>
> So my question:
>
> If someone specifically selects a government agent who behaves in
> such a manner -- initiates force against someone who's truly done
> nothing wrong -- and exterminates him, can that person still be a
> good Libertarian?

Yes. Next question?

Oh, there's the idea that you can only kill while the threat is
active, that once the perpetrator is "helpless" and "unarmed" the
threat is no longer and it in unethical to off the bastard. But if a
gubmint agent is breathing (and can reach his office or even a
cel-phone) there is a clear and present danger.

"If someone specifically selects a government agent who behaves in
such a manner -- initiates force against someone who's truly done
nothing wrong -- and exterminates him, can that person still be a
good Libertarian?"

The concept of "initiation of force" recognizes the reality of force
used in defense, even lethal force. If I come to the aid of an
innocent and kill their attacker, I am hailed as a hero by those who
believe that the attacker was in the wrong.

My personal, private opinion is that murder is wrong. As a jury
member, I might very well consider the killing of a bureaucrat as self
defense, but that would depend on the bureaucrat.

What's left? Being a "Good Libertarian"? Does a "Good Libertarian"
stand aside as his neighbor is persecuted, or defend and protect the
inocent?

I think this will always be the eternal question of those who espouse
Liberty: At what point does it stop being "too early to shoot the
bastards?"

> I think this will always be the eternal question of those who
> espouse Liberty: At what point does it stop being "too early to
> shoot the bastards?"
>
> My gratitude to Claire Wolfe for the above turn of phrase.

The Spark

What would spark patriotic Americans to move out of using the First
Amendment in defense of Liberty and into using the Second Amendment in
defense of Liberty?

1) The Supreme Court falsely declares the second amendment to pertain
only to the military and national guard, or

2) Congress passes and the President signs a national registration
"law", even if only for handguns.

Should the gunwolves attain either of the above two objectives, I
predict that a number of dedicated Real Americans would declare open
season on those who participated in making them so -- and several
ancillary traitors, to assure that the disease was put into remission.

Wishful thinking, you say? We'll know somewhere between 2004 and 2008,
after Bush loses the election to a Demoncrat because he doesn't kill
the so-called "assault weapons" ban or because he closed the so-called
"gun show loophole" -- unless of course we figure out collectively,
beginning very soon, how we are going to put a third party candidate
into the White House in the next election.

My honest opinion is that the vast majority of American gun owners are
going to roll over and their guns be taken rather than risk having
their homes and children burned to the ground.

After Waco, there was a time when I think the spark might have been
set off, as might have happened with the woman in (Indiana I think?)
who was being starved out of her home after she shot the police dogs
that had been sent in for her. But "cooler heads prevailed", and the
police drugged her, and she's long gone.

National firearms registration exists, with the Illinois CAGE program
and various other licensencing schemes. The "blatently
unconstitutional" laws of Brady, Dole (assault), Feinswine, and the
rest have been passed, their provisions enacted, peaceful owners
prosecuted. Confiscation continues, limited only by geography, like
New York or Chicago, or California.

I do not know the next place that the rights and liberty of the
individual will be recognized as superior to the "state", but I fully
expect it will happen again as it has happened in the past. 1775 was a
milestone, not the end of the road. I hope I'm alive to see it, and I
will live as if I will be.

> Good sir, and TLE,
>
> My honest opinion is that the vast majority of American
> gun owners are going to roll over and their guns be taken
> rather than risk having their homes and children burned to
> the ground.

The vast majority of British-worshipping serfs on American soil in
1776 were cowards, too. Care not what jellyfish do; be a shark when
your teeth are needed.

> After Waco, there was a time when I think the spark might
> have been set off, as might have happened with the woman
> in (Indiana I think?) who was being starved out of her home
> after she shot the police dogs that had been sent in for
> her. But "cooler heads prevailed", and the police drugged
> her, and she's long gone.

There will be another Wacolike event. Have faith in tyrants'
propensity to tyrannize.

> National firearms registration exists, with the Illinois
> CAGE program and various other licensencing schemes. The
> "blatently unconstitutional" laws of Brady, Dole (assault),
> Feinswine, and the rest have been passed, their provisions
> enacted, peaceful owners prosecuted. Confiscation continues,
> limited only by geography, like New York or Chicago, or
> California.

Chicagofornia and New York City, England are of little consequence to
the overall big picture of general uprising potential in that they
won't rise up first. It will happen in the south first, as a result of
something the federal government does, most likely.

> Yet the "Spark" has not yet sputtered to life. Who mourns
> Carl Drega?

> I do not know the next place that the rights and liberty
> of the individual will be recognized as superior to the
> "state", but I fully expect it will happen again as it has
> happened in the past.

The next place the rights of the individual will be recognized as
superior to the "state" will be in your mind and heart, right now.
Pass it on.

>> 1775 was a milestone, not the end of the road.

The American Republic will be restored.

> I hope I'm alive to see it, and I will live as if I will be.

In my lifetime, unless by some misfortune I go out early. I'll be 33
in September.

A friend of mine from church went biking the other day in a somewhat
rural part of the state, and ran across some deer blinds. Somebody had
put them up, and had been feeding the deer right in front of the
blinds. When deer season starts, whoever set up the blinds is
evidently going to blast the deer as they come to eat.

My friend was angry; he didnít mind hunting, but didnít think that you
learned anything about yourself, nature, or life by training deer to
stand there and let you blast them. At the time, I thought it was
fine, since the whole point of being human was to be able to outsmart
your prey and then go home to watch "Frasier" in air-conditioned
comfort.

Having thought the matter through, Iíve decided that my friend was
completely wrong; you can learn an important life lesson from these
deer blinds. I donít hunt, but if I ever have kids, Iím going to set
up a similar deer blind/feeder combination for them. During the off
season, Iím going to take them out to see the deer:

Me: "Look, Susie, thereís the deer"

Susie (my hypothetical child): "Ohhhhhh. Daddy, its sooooo cute!!"

The lesson comes when deer season opens, and we take a rifle with us
when we go to see the deer. Weíll wait behind the blind for our victim
to come up.

Me: "Susie, its deer season. Why isnít the deer afraid?"

Susie: "Why should it be? Weíve been feeding it for a year. It trusts
us."

Yes, the self-preservation instincts that deer have developed over
millions of years have been dulled by one single year of handouts.
Bambi is now lazy, stupid, and dependent, and does not know the danger
he is in. If Bambi had opposable thumbs, he would be writing in the
New York Times about how the free food means that humans love him,
care for him, and how all deer should stand ready to sacrifice for
their human leaders. Then again, being too low on the evolutionary
tree never stopped Thomas Friedman from writing things like that for
the Times. At any rate, that is the day that Bambi sacrifices, and I
drive that little life lesson home with a large caliber bullet:

Me: "Susie, this is what happens when you trust others, and give up
thinking and doing for yourself. Now watch as I exhale and smoothly
pull the trigger so as not to screw up my aim."

Susie: "Daddy, noooooooooo!!"

*** BLAM ***

Bambi: "Gasp Run, Thumper, wheeze runÖ"

Now, the kid will probably be angry with me as we haul our kill to the
deer processing shop (i.e. "IRS headquarters") in our gas-guzzling
SUV, but she will thank me in the long run. Maybe Iíll have the deerís
head mounted on the wall in her bedroom opposite her pillow, to be the
first thing she sees every morning when she wakes up.

In a few days the first Tax Refund Checks will begin arriving in
American's mail boxes. Democratic politicians and pundits are already
decrying the bestowment of this refund of stolen wealth upon the
American people saying that it is irresponsible. They suggest that,
instead of spending it on useless consumer goods, we should send it to
charitable organizations or give it back to the government as the
honorable House of Lords, er, Senate member Robert Byrd has suggested
he would do.

Lord Robert Byrd's idea seems to suggest that if a mugger takes our
wallet and then for some odd reason we get the wallet back, we should
still give the money to the mugger because it was rightfully his to
begin with. Of course Lord Byrd is more interested in turning West
Virginia into a western suburb of the District of Columbia and
therefore wants his $600.00 to be used for that purpose. However, Lord
Robert Byrd does not make the most interesting suggestion, instead,
those liberal pundits who suggest that they will give their tax refund
to charities does. Why is this you ask?

Because, it is exactly what libertarians have been saying people would
do if they'd have the money that is stolen, er, raised through taxes
returned to them. Many a time I have talked with friend's of mine and
said, "give the money back to me and let me decide what to do with
it," only to be met with their reply, "no one would give money to
charity." People are able to make their own decision on where the
money goes instead of the government - what a novel idea. But that is
just what is happening, or suggested by certain liberal writers. That
they will be giving their money to charities that they choose.

Even if people spend the money on "useless consumer goods" it is still
flowing into the economy and creating jobs but we as libertarians
already know how that works.

So in and odd way these liberal pundits and parliamentarian lords are
showing the validity of libertarian economic and tax theories.

"...Charles Darwin's "Descent of Man" also made Adler's list of Great
Books. (I've always wondered why Darwin used the title "Descent of
Man" rather than "Ascent of Man". Maybe he knew something we didn't.)
When Adler picked Darwin's book, people were considered ignorant if
they didn't believe in the theory of evolution - remember the famous
Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee. Alas, scientists are now relegating
Darwin's theory of evolution to the trash heap along with Freud's
silly complexes... "

Ms. Jarvis,

Look, if you want to slam Freud, at least remember that we've had
decades to learn more than he ever could, and that at least the guy
was trying. He may have been wrong about some things, but I'll have to
take your word for that, since I'm no expert on Freudians. I
understand, however, that even he said at least once that, "Sometimes
a cigar is just a cigar," i.e., he was not trying to suggest that
everything goes back to the penis. (So to speak.) On the other hand, I
don't believe present-day psychologists get it right every time,
either, so perhaps we shouldn't be quite so smug. It's really more of
an art than a science, isn't it?

But enough of Sigmund.

You state as a fact that scientists are relegating Darwin theory of
evolution "to the trash heap." I don't believe that this is true. As
far as I know scientists in the field still hold him, and his theory
of evolution, in high esteem. Please provide a few names of the
scientists to which you refer, along with specifically which theory is
supplanting the theory of evolution among scientists who have
discarded Darwin. In all honesty, I believe I know where you are
coming from, but I would rather not guess.

Do you believe that most people are rational enough to be allowed to
live without some larger force guiding their actions?

If you believe most people can't be trusted, then you believe in gun
control, socialized medicine, gov't funded housing, Federally
controlled schools, and , in general, the concept of "people control".
"People Control" says that the gov't must control the environment
because all people are potential criminals who are just waiting for
the means and opportunity. Call it "baby proofing the house" writ
large. People who are successful are taxed to make up for other
people's failure to make as much - just like kids who should be bumped
a grade level in school are kept behind to learn "social skills". When
they see other people in trouble, they turn to the "parent figure" of
gov't, and demand those poor folks be helped. It is more important to
be seen as "supporting a cause" than to be actively involved in the
cause (ie, wearing a yellow ribbon to remember the dead children at
OKC ... even though that yellow ribbon doesn't signify a contribution
to a fund to build a memorial. Or wearing a red "AIDS Ribbon", and not
contributing blood to help people who are getting transfusions due to
hepatitis/AIDS complications.)

If you believe most people can be trusted, then you believe laws
should punish those who do bad things. The general mind set here is
that if everyone who committed crimes of violence was put in a pine
box, only a small minority of the overall population would be lost,
and the rest of the people would live peacefully. They don't believe
any object should be illegal, but actions which initiate force
against another demand the strongest reply. They believe the only
rational response to criminal use of force is an immediate blunting
attack, preferably delivered by the victim - and they believe this is
the best way to minimize harm to the innocent. There is a strong
concept of "Evil" and "Innocent" in their mentality. When they see an
"innocent" in trouble, a strong streak of "There but for the Grace of
God go I" is in these people - they help out the neighbor with the
broken well pump. They give to the Red Cross when there's a disaster.
They help during the search for the kid that's lost in the woods.

With respect to gun control, the major core of the issue is that the
folks who are against it view guns like car safety belts : I'll
probably never have to use it, since most folks are as rational as a I
am, but on the slim off chance that I do, I want it close at hand.
With your car you can drive for decades without getting in an
accident, but when you do, you want as much protection as you can get.
Same with guns - with any luck you'll never need it, but if you do,
you'll need it badly.

On the flip side, the gun control advocates see it similarly, except
they see the world as inhabited basically by people who don't know how
to drive ... to clear up the metaphor, they see the world as filled
with people who are basically irrational, and who are likely to cause
trouble. If everyone has guns , they say, then everyone will be
shooting at the slightest provocation (because anyone who has a gun
is, by definition, a ticking time bomb). They live in a world where
everyone around them is a continuing threat, and they want to minimize
the weapons available to that threat in order to minimize damage to
themselves. Curiously enough, most of the gun control advocates also
include themselves in the "too irrational to own a gun safely"
category. Consider the strongest speakers at the MMM were women who
had lost children due to the speaker's own improper storage of the
firearm.

If you boil it down, most people see themselves as basically "normal".
They figure most people are like them - similar strengths, similar
weaknesses. This makes sense - darn few people like to go through life
thinking "I'm weird", so they project a bit of themselves into how
they see everyone else.

If the person is self-confident and self-disciplined, they believe
most everyone else is too, and who would be crazy enough to deny a
rational adult the use of a life-saving tool, such as a seat-belt,
life vest or gun.

If the person is knee-jerk emotional and views themselves as a "child"
who needs to be helped by the "nanny State", they think everyone else
is similar to them, and who the heck would be crazy enough to hand a
child a gun.